Mexican police arrested after crossing border in shooting incident

The four men arrested by the U.S. Border Patrol after a man with a gunshot was found last week in Hudspeth County turned out to be Mexican law enforcement officers who inadvertently crossed the border, an agency spokesman said Friday.

On the evening of June 5, Border Patrol agents found a man with a gunshot wound to a leg near farms about two miles east of Hudspeth County line, Border Patrol spokesman Agent Ramiro Cordero said Friday. Four other men were arrested after crossing the border.

Cordero said that the four men were Chihuahua state police officers who were armed and had mistakenly crossed the border searching for the wounded man. The international boundary is at the middle of the Rio Grande, which was dry at that location, he said.

"There was no meaningful entry," Cordero said. He said that the Chihuahua police officers were returned to Mexico two days later.

The wounded man turned out to be a U.S. citizen and was released from the hospital the next day, Cordero said.

Cordero said he did not know where the shooting occurred or who shot the man. No shots were fired by any Border Patrol agents.

It is not uncommon for Mexican military or law enforcement officers to be detained by the U.S. Border Patrol after crossing the border and released shortly after being questioned.

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In 2009, six Mexican federal police officers were detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in El Paso after they walked into U.S. territory while looking for a suspect vehicle on the Bridge of the Americas, according to El Paso Times archives. The uniformed officers were detained for less than four hours before they and their weapons were returned to Mexico. The border is set at the middle of the international bridge.

In a more unusual incident in December 2010, a small aerial drone belonging to Mexican federal police crashed in the yard of a home in El Paso's Lower Valley.

The Orbiter Mini Unmanned Aerial Vehicle did not have permission to be in U.S. airspace, according to El Paso Times archives. Mexican officials refused to talk about the drone's mission but said that it was on a surveillance flight. The drone developed mechanical problems and Mexican officials immediately notified the U.S. that the drone could fall on the U.S. side of the border.

The Israeli-made drone was quickly returned to Mexico with U.S. officials citing trust between both nations for helping solve the situation.